Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Sorry if that last post left a despairing taste in the mouths of those dropping by here. I certainly did have an end-of-era feeling when I heard that news and wrote the post, but my wife reminds me that I most likely will not be following anyone into the dark night just yet, and in case, it's not my belief that a dark night is what necessarily awaits any of us, so let's move on.

Since the Met RING last May I've seen SIEGFRIED and TURANDOT at the Washington National Opera. Should give you a quick rundown on those soon.

I've also spent three weeks in Strasbourg, with a side-weekend in Paris, and a spot of farhrening auf der Autobahn as well. No opera, though, alas: I was there to teach law (my day-job).

I thought about dashing to Munich, but what I most wanted to see their was Jonas Kaufmann as LOHENGRIN, but that was sold out, and the production, from what I hear, weakens my reticence about using the term "eurotrash." (No production should be condemned sight unseen -- I've learned that -- but even the German critics and public thought director Richard Jones had some 'splaining to do.)

We did see something we very much wanted to see -- not in an opera house, but on one: Apollo's Lyre, atop the Opera Garnier in Paris. This statue plays a major role in one chapter in Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, the scene that corresponds to the final scene of Act I of Andrew Lloyd Webber's show (the most faithful adaptation of the nover ever done, btw). My daughter was very, very pleased!

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Welcome

BOX FIVE -- the opera blog of a boy raised at the Met and now grown up and teaching things. If you're an older opera fan you may remember my dad, Alan C. Wagner, of "Living Opera" and many a Met Opera Quiz and Guild Lecture.